Auchenstroan Coloured Ryelands

Our hens have all the creature comforts we can provide. There are three state of the art plastic hen houses with automatic door openers that open and close at dawn and dusk. Inside, there are purpose built roosting bars or individual boxes packed with fresh sawdust. Each hen can choose its own sleeping arrangements to […]

Some time back, we connected our hill paddocks with the orchard next to our house. We like having the sheep close by. It’s what we call the ‘lambing paddock’, mainly because we built a lambing shed there. Really, it should be the ‘orchard paddock’ as it is home to our apple trees, all protected from […]

Every year we have been here, we have planted more trees as part of our goal to rewild large areas of our smallholding. Earlier this year, we created a new wildlife corridor and this winter, our task will be to fill it with (more) trees. This involved a lot of fencing, mainly to stop the […]

My younger brother Matty often comes to visit us, he loves spending time with the sheep and when we haven’t roped him in to help us build or fix something, (in return for lots of homemade cake and cups of tea of course!) he loves nothing better than to wander around taking in the scenery […]

Regular readers of our blog may be aware of the ongoing repairs to our stone dykes. They appear to have been neglected for some time and so it’s something we’re trying to rectify. The latest repair was the wall next to our access track. Something had knocked down a section and it looked a bit […]

It has been a good year for the veggies. The new polytunnel produced plenty of salad and tomatoes are ripening thick and fast. Outdoors, everything we planted has grown well. We’re not sure if it is down to the amazing, hot summer or all our preparation, probably a bit of both. The soil, this year, […]

This summer has been long, hot and dry (most unusual for Scotland!)  This has been great, mostly, who doesn’t love the sunshine?  It lifts the spirits and the long evenings we have up here can be appreciated at their very best.  On a sunny day, it can stay light and bright until 10pm at night! […]

We have planted a lot of trees here and those planted a few years back are finally starting to establish and grow taller than me. But what was missing was connecting the various patches of woodland. So, we devised a wildlife corridor that will connect woods to the north of the house all the way […]

For the last three summers, between the months of June and September, one of Vi’s good friends, Vera, has been suffering from an allergic reaction to the sun. Vera’s “summer itches” usually start just after shearing time.  This is understandable since her woolly coat would protect her from the sun’s rays.  The wool has to […]

At Auchenstroan, we seem either to have too much water or too little. With this long, hot, dry summer stretching out over months, it’s definitely the latter and memories of having to install drainage are fading fast. Since we moved here, we have installed sheep troughs fed by natural springs (water system and water system […]

Yesterday was shearing day, an exciting day in the sheep calendar! We look forward to shearing for so many reasons but the number one reason is sheep welfare.  We really feel for our sheep as spring turns to summer.  They get quite down in the dumps in hot weather, ours park themselves in their field […]

One of the things we have puzzled over since moving here was what to do with a large expanse of grass that sat between our house and two neighbouring cottages. It need constant mowing to keep on top of it but was never really used for anything except the odd game of ball with the […]